Glen Cook - Bleak Seasons

Somebody called out something in Nyueng Bao. My troops had not followed orders. Someone else, in Taglian, called, “Can you come up here please, Mr. Murgen?”

I told Swan, “I don’t know what’s up. You better stand fast. These guys are real touchy.”

“I got nothing else to do with my life.”

“I mean it. They’re paranoid in a big way. If you had spent the last several months in there you’d understand,” I clambered up a steep slope to where one Taglian knelt in some scraggly brush with a Nyueng Bao about fifteen years old.

The boy pointed, eager to be the first to deliver bad news.

Fresh smoke rose from Dejagore. From, near as I could tell, the north barbican. It looked like there was fighting there.

A mauve flash told me One-Eye or Goblin was involved.

Mogaba must be trying to recover the barbican.

I spied flickers around the west gate, too.

“Damned Mogaba. Thanks, guys. Nothing we can do about it, though.” I hoped One-Eye and Goblin carved Mogaba a new poop chute. “Get on back to camp, will you? There’s stuff that’s got to get done.”

Lady was gone. Blade was in charge and just sitting around collecting refugees from the city, keeping them from reporting back with news about Shadowspinner. He admitted that. “That’s what she wants done.” He seemed indifferent to Sahra, unlike every other man in camp.

“She’s lucky she’s not here,” I grumbled. “I’d turn her over my knee.”

Since there was nothing else going on I sat around with him and Swan and Mather until it started to get dark. Somebody found a puppy for To Tan to play with. When it got late I said, “We’d better get back to our people. They’ll be getting nervous.”

“No can do, buddy,” Mather told me.

Blade agreed. “She said no exceptions.”

The warmth went out of the air. I gave each one what I thought of as the Nyueng Bao look. Swan and Mather averted their eyes. Blade took it but with a twitch.

Sahra seemed untroubled. I suppose, after Dejagore, it was hard to imagine a turn for the worse. She even smiled.

“I assume the prison pen is where I left it?” I remembered that part of my previous visit perfectly.

“We will keep you more comfortably,” Blade promised.

Mather volunteered, “I’ll show you where to bunk.”

We were far enough away not to overhear, Swan thought. He told Blade, “You look at her good? That’s one spooky woman.”

I glanced at Sahra. I assumed she heard, too, but her expression told me nothing.

If Blade answered Swan he spoke more softly.

I continued to study Sahra, wondering what Swan had seen.

The tent was decent. It must have belonged to a middle-grade Shadowlander officer. We were not unhonored guests. And the tent came with a man assigned to make us comfortable and bring us our supper. Blade’s troops were foraging successfully, it seemed. I ate better than I had for a long time.

“What I want more than anything in the world,” I told our man, whose name I never learned, “is a bath.” Sahra hit him with a smile guaranteed to melt armor plate. She was enthusiastic about that idea. “I’m so filthy my fleas have lice,” I said.

Must have been a real ration of guilt going around at high levels. An hour later several soldiers showed up humping a looted stone horse trough. With them came guys lugging buckets of hot water. I told Sahra, “We must of died and come back as princes.”

Our tent was big enough to contain the trough and water with room left over.

Swan turned up. “What do you think of that, eh?”

“If I didn’t have friends over there fighting and dying I’d ask for a life sentence.”

“Take it easy, Murgen. It’ll all work out.”

“I know that, Swan. I know that. But some of us aren’t going to be happy how it does.” “Yeah, well. Good night.”

It was. Beginning with the bath Sahra made it clear her definition of our relationship was exactly what others feared or suspected. She astounded me with her ability to communicate without spoken words, amazed me that in the midst of such unrelenting hell a flower of such beauty could bloom and defy the night.

I slept longer and better than I had for months. Maybe some part of me just resigned and let go.

Water in the face wakened me.

“What?” I cracked an eyelid. And popped upright. Sahra sat up as I did. “To Tan? What’re you doing, kiddo?” The little guy was leaning over the edge of the horse trough, spanking the water. He looked at me and grinned, said something in Nyueng Bao baby talk that sounded like “Dada.”

“What’s going on?”

Sahra shrugged. To Tan said “Dada” again and headed out of the tent.

Things were happening outside. I grabbed my clothes, climbed in, stuck my head outside. “Holy shit! Where the freak did you guys come from?” Thai Dei and Uncle Doj were seated outside. Their swords lay across their laps. Sheathed, thankfully. Gangs of Taglians were coming by to check them out. I guessed they had not been there long nor had they asked permission to enter camp and assume their posts.

Swan and Mather appeared.

Uncle Doj told me, “Only one group made it out again last night. The black men attacked. Many men were injured. Numerous rafts were damaged. But their soldiers did not want to fight and many asked to join Bonharj.”

“Who the hell are these guys?” Swan demanded. “How did they get here?”

“The rest of the family. I expect they sneaked. They’re good at that. Obviously, your perimeter ain’t what it should be.”

Blade shouted something from the distance. “Crap,” Swan grumbled. “Now what?” He jogged away.

Mather considered Thai Dei and Uncle Doj briefly, shrugged, followed Swan. Uncle Doj said something to Sahra. She nodded. I guess he wanted to know if she was all right.

To Tan climbed around on his father.

Doj told me, “You did well, and more than you were obliged, Standardbearer. Our people are safely away and these men know nothing about them.”

“Yeah? Good. What about mine?”

“They would not come out. The wizards want to pursue their vendetta with Mogaba. They might come tonight.”

They did not come that night. Nor did they come the next though they sent a lot of Taglians and Jaicuri out in place of the Company.

Two mornings later Mather finally let me in on what the excitement had been about when Blade interrupted our discussion over Uncle Doj and Thai Dei. He told me, “Croaker will be here in an hour or two, Murgen. You might put in a good word.”

“What?”

It was not an hour and it was not just the Old Man. Croaker was travelling with the Prahbrindrah Drah himself. He looked like he had seen a lot of hard road. I moved toward him in fits and starts, unsure where we stood after all this time.

He jumped down, said, “It is me. I’m real.”

“But I saw you die.”

“No. You saw me get hit. I was still breathing when you cut out.”

“Yeah? The shape you was in, there wasn’t no way...” “Shouldn’t have been, either. It’s a long story. We can chew on it over a few beers sometime.” He waved. A soldier trotted up. Croaker grabbed his spear, which was almost long enough to be a pike, shoved it at me. “Here. You left this when you ran off to play Widowmaker.”

I did not believe it. Not at first. It was the lance for the standard.

“You really need to hug it?”

“It’s really it! I was almost sure it was lost.” Despite what I had told Mogaba. “You got no idea how guilty I felt. Although I did think I saw it that one time... It’s really you?” I looked at him closely. Having seen what illusions One-Eye and Goblin could conjure I was not quite ready to accept the evidence of my own eyes.